In recent years, wearable devices have been put into practical use with achievement of downsizing of information terminals such as mobile phones. The wearable device is a small information terminal usable by being attached to a human body by a band (such a wearable device is hereinafter referred to as a wearable terminal). Promising wearable terminals are of types such as a watch type and a wrist band type in which a terminal is attached with a bendable band wound about an arm.
Meanwhile, only few wearable terminals are used by being continuously attached to the human bodies in spite of their names “wearable”. Normal wearable terminals are often used in both states attached to or detached from the human body.
Then, as a band usable in a wearable terminal to attach or detach the wearable terminal, there are a band having a structure disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-034340 and a band disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 11-239504. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-034340 discloses a band with magnet in which hard band pieces are joined to make the band elastic and magnets are arranged not to project from the band.
On the other hand, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 11-239504 discloses a decorative bracelet in which multiple links (pieces) are joined by columnar bars one after another like joints and the links and the columnar bars are held together by flexible connecting materials.
However, when a wearable terminal is attached or detached, similar to a watch belt, a belt has to be hooked or unhooked every time. Thus, there is a problem that an attaching/detaching operation is troublesome. There is also another problem that a belt made of resin or a bending-type wrist band tends to keep a bent form even when detached, and is bothersome since the belt or the wrist band bends even after being detached. Similarly, the band disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-034340 has problems that since the band has spring force only in a direction in which the band shrinks, the band may not be easily detached, and is bothersome as the band remains bent even after being removed.
In one aspect, the present application has an object of providing a multi-joint bending structure that may be attached to or detached from a human body with a single touch, and a wearable device (wearable terminal) using the structure.